Back Street Heroes October 2025

Wotcha! Welcome to issue 498 of BSH, just two away from the big 500 and, Idunno about you, but the anticipation’s killing me. 500 issues, eh? 500! Eesh… Anyway, what amIgoing to blather onabout this month? I did have atopic planned, but Norm’s just used the same theme in one ofhis Devil’s Advocate things for afuture issue, and I don’t really want tosteal his thunder* so… er, er, er, yes, right, in the fine old British tradition ofifyou can’t think of anything to say inasocial situation, talk about the weather. It’s September (yes, I know it says October on the cover for some unfathomable treason, but let’s not wish our lives away, eh?) which means that, inthese days of us having thrown a three-eighths Gripley into the planet’s weather control…

I know it’s the norm to moan about the end of the world as we know it, but I’ve never seen so many L-plates on the camping fields and, additionally, somany people under the age of 35 on A2 bikes and 600s so maybe, just maybe, things’re swinging back in the right direction. How about some more good news? The number ofpeople through the gate was also upfourteen per cent, which was undoubtedly helped byMAG’s multi-level social media campaign (who’d’ve ever thought MAG’d beon TikTok?) and, last but not least, the weather was amazing! Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the rally… Right, here we go. Onthe Thursday there’s always achilled affair with alimited number of people arriving early tosoak upthe atmosphere, pitch up, and have acatch-up inthe Blues Bar,…

ANYONE WHO’S BEEN TO ANY OF THE BIG RALLIES IN THE LAST YEAR OR SO, AND A FAIR NUMBER OF THE SMALLER ONES, TOO, WILL’VE SEEN THIS BIKE AND THE ONE THAT FOLLOWS IT IN A FEW PAGES: PETE AND COOKIE’S HAND-CHANGE/CAR TYRE RAT CHOPS. THEY’RE FATHER AND SON, AND BOTH ENCOURAGE EACH OTHER TO BUILD CRAZIER AND CRAZIER CONTRAPTIONS, AND WE JUST HAD TO SHOW THEM TO YOU. I started collecting random parts that didn’t really go together, and looking at what we already had, and an idea the born – it was going to be black and, as requested, mental. I acquired a VFR750 v-four Honda, stripped it, kept the engine and electrics, and stashed the rest behind Jas’ garden shed (I have enough stashed around mine already).…

I had a turbocharged VTR ratfighter that dad and I’d built and, after a few days standing there looking at it, I rang him. “Hey dad, you know that hardtail frame in the garden, and the girder forks under the bench, are they free? Can I have them? I need something to do.” Two days later, I had a pile of parts and a rolling frame, and on the third day I disassembled the VTR, pulled the motor out, loaded the new project into my pickup and drove to his garage. The rolling hardtail chassis was sat on the work bench, and the lines looked pretty sweet, so we dropped the VTR engine in and looked at each other. “That looks insane, but there’s a problem – the engine’s not…

2025 marked the event’s third year and, while its reputation for being one of the standout highlights of the UK’s chopper culture was solidified, the road to its success this year wasn’t without its problems. Just weeks before it was scheduled to take place, Mutt Motorcycles, a key partner for the event, went into administration, throwing the whole event into uncertainty, and this left James, Rhys, and the rest of the crew scrambling to find a new venue at the eleventh hour as, without one, the show’d’ve had to’ve been cancelled. In the nick of time though, they found a new venue: the Kingsley Café on the A40 near Eynsham in Oxfordshire, a venue already well known for hosting vibrant community events, which provided the perfect setting for a show…

I looked at what I’d amassed and realised I had enough parts to build three bikes (!), so hatched a plan to build three completely different-looking 500 Triumphs with the only commonality being the front frame loop and the engine – this bike is number two of the three. During a work trip to Houston I’d picked up a David Bird bolt-on hardtail with a two-inch stretch, and a one-inch drop, from Lowbrow Customs, and this was bolted to the frame and the rear wheel installed, and custom spacers and a speedo blank were machined in the lathe to get it centred. The idea was to use as many Triumph parts as possible to make the bike look like it could have been something made at the factory. I’d always…